Great news! A new gene-editing treatment has beaten a tough type of blood cancer that doctors couldn’t cure before. It’s giving real hope to people who thought they had no options left.
The treatment works by changing the DNA of donated white blood cells, making them able to find and destroy cancer cells. In a trial, ten people (eight children and two adults) with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia received this treatment after chemo and transplants failed. Nearly two-thirds of them, about 64%, improved.
The first person to receive this treatment in 2022, a girl from the UK who is now 16, remains cancer-free and is doing well. She only needs a yearly check-up and hopes to work in cancer research. This suggests the treatment could have lasting benefits.
Researchers at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital used a method called base editing, which can change single letters in DNA very precisely. They modified healthy T-cells from donors so they would not attack the patient’s body or each other. The cells were also made resistant to chemotherapy and able to target and destroy cancerous T-cells. These edited cells remove both healthy and cancerous T-cells. If no cancer is found afterward, a transplant is done to help rebuild the immune system. This process is difficult and can lead to problems like infections because the immune system becomes weaker.
The results, published in the *New England Journal of Medicine*, show that nine out of eleven patients went into remission. This made it possible for them to receive bone marrow transplants. Seven of these patients remain cancer-free, from three months up to three years after treatment. In two cases, the cancer returned because it changed and no longer had the target the therapy was designed for.
The doctors involved in the trial say the results are impressive because this disease is very difficult to treat and the patients had few options before. They agree that more research is needed, but this treatment could be a major breakthrough and help more people with hard-to-treat blood cancers in the future.
